de Montaigne once said, “The great thing
in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
I would say that Devin came closer
to belonging to himself than just aboutany middle school student I knew
I appreciate him so much more now
than I did at the time
unfortunately, he was intellectually
on his own in my classroom,
but he made the most of the situation

finding ways to “govern himself”
(oh, for the Internet back then)
because be couldn’t govern
what was going on around him